US elections: Trump case dismissed over discredited claims

ANALYSIS: The electoral lawsuit promoted by President Donald Trump and dismissed on Friday (Saturday NZT) by the United States Supreme Court was littered with claims that did not stand up to basic scrutiny.

The superior court dismissed a complaint filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that directly targeted four other states that President-elect Joe Biden won: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

With the widespread expectation that legal experts would fail, the lawsuit still had the support of 18 Republican attorneys general and 126 Republican members of Congress, including Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Together, Trump and his allies argued that the high court should sideline votes from all four states, allowing Republican-led state legislatures to tip the election toward the president. That would have been something that has never happened in American history.

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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel warned before the court ruling that if Texas had won, “it is the end of democracy in the United States of America, and that is not hyperbole. It’s just a fact. “

The Supreme Court dismissed the case without addressing most of the allegations in the lawsuit. Here’s a look at some of the claims made in the case and how those claims had already been debunked.

THE CLAIMS OF THE LAWSUIT: Texas has the right to “require that all other states abide by constitutionally established rules when appointing presidential electors to the electoral college.” It says other states are harmed when one state “violates federal law to affect the outcome of a presidential election.”

THE FACTS: The Supreme Court dismissed the case on this issue. He said in a brief order that Texas “has not demonstrated a judicially recognizable interest in the way another state conducts its elections.”

Legal experts said Texas had no right to present the case in the first place because it has no say in how other states conduct their elections and has suffered no real harm. And even if you had a legitimate case, it was filed too late, experts say.

“Texas does not have the capacity in federal court to assert the voting rights of voters in other states, much less to undermine the rights of those voters,” wrote Lisa Marshall Manheim, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. , in an opinion. piece for The Washington Post.

Some Republicans in Texas agreed. US Republican Chip Roy tweeted that he would not join the case because “I believe that the case itself represents a dangerous violation of federalism and sets a precedent for a state to request federal courts to monitor the voting procedures of other states.”

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THE CLAIMS OF THE LAWSUIT: The four states that Texas is suing “usurped the authority of their legislatures and unconstitutionally revised the electoral statutes of their state.”

THE FACTS: Trump and his allies have lost many cases arguing that only state legislatures could change electoral practices during the coronavirus pandemic. This lawsuit takes up arguments already rejected by courts that sided with officials who acted under their respective state laws.

For example, the lawsuit alleges that Pennsylvania “unconstitutionally removed” the “statutory signature verification requirements.” But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously in October that state law makes it clear only that the ballot envelope requires a voter signature, but not a matching signature.

Among the states that changed voting practices without legislative action this year is Texas, which extended early voting by six days due to the pandemic.

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THE CLAIMS OF THE LAWSUIT: Given Trump’s lead in all four states “at 3 am” the morning after the election, Biden’s chances of winning all four were “less than one in a quadrillion.”

THE FACTS: What sounds like a statistically significant figure is not based on what the experts predicted before the election: in-person votes counted more quickly would likely favor Trump and votes by mail counted later would favor Biden.

For months, Democrats pressured voters to mail ballots that would be counted later, while Trump attacked vote-by-mail as fraudulent even though he voted by mail in Florida.

Republican legislative leaders in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin resisted pleas from election officials to update the laws to allow for a faster count.

The idea that Trump would have big early leads was not a surprise and does not prove that any crime or fraud occurred.

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THE CLAIMS OF THE LAWSUIT: There are “facts for which there is still no independently verified reasonable explanation.”

THE FACTS: Each of the listed “facts” has an independently verified explanation.

A laptop and USB sticks were stolen Oct. 1 from a city warehouse in Philadelphia. A spokesman for the city’s electoral commission said at the time: “We are confident that this incident will in no way compromise the integrity of the elections.”

The local district attorney said days later that police discovered the theft was unrelated to the election, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

There was briefly a tabulation problem involving a few thousand votes in Republican-leaning County Antrim, Michigan. But it was not caused by the voting machines. “There was no malice, there was no fraud here, just human error,” said County Clerk Sheryl Guy.

And Milwaukee’s chief elections official, Claire Woodall-Vogg, left a flash drive with missing vote counts as she was handing out a batch of flash drives to the local election commission, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

Woodall-Vogg said he called a team member and a police officer delivered the last ride. Despite what the lawsuit says, Woodall-Vogg said the unit was “never left unattended.”